Generally, people use their hands to open and close doors. The typical doors that may be opened and closed are car doors, house doors, refrigerator doors etc. These standard doors require a certain amount of physical strength to open and close them so some elderly and handicapped people may not be able to easily open and close them. In addition, if a person has a lot of groceries it is cumbersome for her to open the doors and hold the groceries at the same time.
There were several patents developed to address the problem of opening and closing the doors, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,988,709 and 5,522,656. The inventions described in these patents enable people to easily use their hands to open and close doors by using gears, cams, springs and mechanical linkage to aid in door movement. However, these inventions were not useful for elderly or handicapped people that could not use their hands to open and close the doors.
Next, there were several U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,270,175 and 4,911,508 developed that did not require the use of hands to open and close doors. Nevertheless, there were still problems with these inventions because they required a user to utilize his feet to open and close the doors, which was not useful to those who couldn't use their feet.
Further, there was another U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,137 that was developed that did not require the use of hands or feet to open and close the door. However, this invention does not simply and efficiently open and close a door.
Therefore, there is a need for a device that enables a user to effortlessly open and close a door across a surface while expending a minimum amount of energy.